<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2019 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => '',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/07/06.jpg" alt="A street corner outside my workplace" class="framed-centred-image" width="800" height="480"/>
<section id="diet">
	<h2>Dietary intake</h2>
	<p>
		For breakfast, I had 64 grams of cereal and 110 grams of soy milk.
		For lunch, I had a 439-gram smoothie.
		For dinner, I had 548 grams of potato gnocchi, Italian sausage, and marinara and 156 grams of cranberry sauce.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion posts for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Some computer graphics would no doubt be the same today even without the concept of an alpha channel having been added.
			For example, I used to play a game as a child that used tile sets to build out the world.
			The community, myself included, used to build our own tile sets and make them available for download.
			The interesting thing though was that the game rendered the colour <code>#ff00ff</code> as transparent.
			The tile sets were required to be in $a[PNG] format, and $a[PNG]s support alpha-based transparency (or as the textbook would say, alpha-based colour-blending), but the developers didn&apos;t use that.
			Instead, they&apos;d chosen a specific colour that now couldn&apos;t be used on any tiles whatsoever, and used that colour to provide transparency.
			It was an all-or-nothing sort of transparency, where you couldn&apos;t have translucent tiles, but it worked.
			If we didn&apos;t have alpha transparency, I feel like many other programs would do similar things with a specific colour, and there might even become some sort of standard as to what colour was always rendered transparent in compliant programs.
			Or as you described in your post about transparency in $a[GIF]s, there could be some non-colour value that represents transparency.
		</p>
		<p>
			At the same time though, there&apos;s a lot that would be different.
			This sort of all-or-nothing transparency is all you&apos;d have; any sort of per-pixel or per-plane translucence would probably be an alpha channel but under a different name, so we have to say it&apos;s not available.
			Rendering things such as glass in a {$a['3D']} model would be tricky.
			You could render only streaks of light on the glass&apos; surface while leaving the rest of the glass unrendered, I suppose, but it wouldn&apos;t look at all believable.
			Even {$a['2D']} graphics would suffer with a lack of an alpha channel.
			In image editors such as the $a[GIMP], you can have multiple layers that get compressed into a single layer when you save the image as, say, a $a[PNG], but those layers get blended together using the alpha channel.
			You can&apos;t do nearly as cool of things without having alpha channels to work with.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			I haven&apos;t really looked into $a[GIF]s before.
			I sort of wondered while I was reading the material this week how they worked.
			As the textbook points out, $a[GIF]s use indexed colour.
			Just a bit prior, the book had been discussing alpha channels, which don&apos;t really fit into an indexed colour system, so I wasn&apos;t sure what they use for transparency.
			It&apos;s interesting to hear that they use one of their indexes to represent transparency.
			That&apos;s an interesting way to get around the lack of an alpha channel.
			It has a couple interesting implications for partly-transparent images though.
			First, a $a[GIF] image that includes transparency can only use 255 colours, not 256, because the 256th index has to be set aside for transparency.
			And secondly, you can&apos;t have translucence.
			It&apos;s all-or-nothing.
			The pixel is either completely invisible or it completely obscures the pixel behind it.
		</p>
		<p>
			Alpha-based collision detection sounds pretty interesting as well, though more computationally-expensive than box-based collision detection.
			I had no idea that such a method had been implemented though.
			I just assumed collision boxes were the only option.
		</p>
		<p>
			Thanks for all the great information!
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minetest</h2>
	<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_3.0/minetest.net./weblog/2019/07/06.png" alt="Hello, my island. I&apos;ve missed you." class="framed-centred-image" width="1024" height="600"/>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t really want to release my new level-display mod just yet.
		I don&apos;t feel like I can get a proper screenshot of it in action for the release thread on the forum.
		I used to have a proper world going that I could take screenshots in.
		A live world, with actual gameplay data.
		That&apos;s what I need.
		Single-player worlds are just fine, but they need actual gameplay statistics to make the screenshots look genuine, instead of merely staged.
		I mean, screenshots for mod-release topics are obviously always staged, but a mod that relates to statistics should have a screenshot that presents real-looking statistics.
	</p>
	<p>
		My new world will use Minetest Game, with only a bare minimum of mods added to it.
		First, there&apos;ll be <code>minestats</code>.
		Not only is it absolutely necessary if I&apos;m going to be getting real statistics for my screenshots, but I also have more drive to play when <code>minestats</code> is installed, and I&apos;m less driven to play stupidly.
		Without <code>minestats</code> counting my mining, my goal tends to be not how much I can dig up, but rather how much I can stockpile, as that&apos;s something that I can call measurable progress.
		Secondly, I&apos;ll be playing with my unreleased Retro Stats Modpack.
		I don&apos;t know if I&apos;ve mentioned it before, but it&apos;s a set of three mods that bring back the six stats Minetest Game has lost over the years.
		And finally, I&apos;ll be playing with this new mod, <code>levels_menu</code>.
		It&apos;s not necessary, but it&apos;s unintrusive and doesn&apos;t actually modify gameplay.
		I might as well add it for my own amusement.
	</p>
	<p>
		From there, when I have mods I need a screenshot of that make actual changes to the world, I can duplicate the world, add the mod to the copy, get the screenshot, and delete the modified clone.
		I&apos;ll have real gameplay statistics without having a bunch of unrelated mods gunking up my world.
		I thought long and hard about including Building Up From Zero in my world as well, but to be honest, I don&apos;t need it.
		The entire point of that mod is to make stats actually worth something.
		But to me, they&apos;re already worth something.
		I only need Building Up From Zero for a public world I might host, not my private sanctuary world.
		Besides, even if Building Up From Zero grows into something awesome, it&apos;s only one front end for <code>minestats</code>&apos; capabilities.
		If I come up with more, which one should take priority and be the one I use in my world?
		Honestly, I don&apos;t think Building Up From Zero can measure up to the potential mods not yet out there.
		It&apos;s going to be fantastic, but I feel like there&apos;s something so much better, if I can just figure out what it is.
	</p>
	<p>
		I didn&apos;t get any building or mining done after setting up the world and returning to my island.
		The new Minetest Game spawns me away from the island, likely because the island is way too steep.
		New players really don&apos;t belong there.
		I just wasn&apos;t sure what to <strong>*do*</strong> with the island though.
		I mean, it&apos;s at the very centre of the map.
		That&apos;s a prime location.
		It should be used well.
		Before I started the new world, I figured I&apos;d tear the whole island down and put up my attempt at a castle there.
		The island is too tall and bizarrely-shaped though.
		It&apos;d be a shame to lose it.
		I thought I&apos;d remembered that the large blob up above was a floating island neat the main island, but it&apos;s actually connected.
		I was going to leave it while tearing down the main island, but there&apos;s only one island there.
	</p>
	<p>
		Instead, I worked in a flat, creative world and figured out how I want to build my road system.
		I&apos;ll take my roads through the island&apos;s mountain, crossing them underground in the middle.
		Other than that, the island will remain untouched for now.
		I&apos;ll try my hand at castle-building elsewhere.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
